Nintendo Powerfest '94

Discussion of hardware and software development for Super NES and Super Famicom. See the SNESdev wiki for more information.

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matalog
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Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 am

Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

The Nintendo competition carts have been interesting me recently.

I found the required files to play Nintendo Powerfest'94 here, https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting ... ased_1000/
here, http://blog.pricecharting.com/2013/02/p ... ction.html
and here, http://www.nintendoplayer.com/unreleased/dsp-1/

and you can use higan v0.93 to play them.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vhm ... t.png?dl=0


This is what the files look like in a folder named at top, if you want to play in Higan v0.93


Does anyone know if these files could be put together into one .sfc file? - everything seems to be there.

Thanks for any help,

Matalog
lidnariq
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Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by lidnariq »

Not trivially: the hardware on the cartridge actually switches which of the images is accessible to the SNES at any given time.
tepples
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Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by tepples »

Is there anything in the header of PF94 to identify this switching hardware? If so, then it'd be a matter of adding mapper support to an emulator.
matalog
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Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 am

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

I'm not sure I made it clear in the first post - the files listed work as one game in Higan v0.93, you just put the files in the correct folder as Higan likes them to be, it then handles everything and it's like playing the cart - i believe (I have never played the cart).

I assumed that the header information was in one of the files I mentioned, possibly the .bml file?

The scoring ROM could possibly move between the other games?

If not, does that mean that Higan contains the information that is missing, inside the emulator?

Matalog.
lidnariq
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Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by lidnariq »

The "information that is missing" is the manifest file, and to a lesser extent, yes, in the emulator.

Based on what we've heard, the original hardware contained multiple ROMs; while a reproduction could glue them all together into a single ROM(≈SFC file), the notion of how to divide the ROM into multiple different games is something that the emulator has to know how to do.
matalog
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Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 am

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

The manifest file is at the top of the link I had in the original post https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting ... ased_1000/

You put that text in manifest.bml and that is what higan reads.
lidnariq
Posts: 11432
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:12 am

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by lidnariq »

Yes, and the manifest file is what tells higan to read four different files and switch between them dynamically...

There's no metadata to "switch between them" if you put the 2¼ MiB of binaries into the same binary without a manifest file.

I suppose it might be possible to reduce it to a situation of "just" requiring a manifest file and one combined "SFC" file, but I don't see how that's an improvement.
Near
Founder of higan project
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Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by Near »

> Is there anything in the header of PF94 to identify this switching hardware?

Nope. The ROM header is a carbon copy of the one from Prehistorik Man, of all things.

higan v101 can load the game as a single SFC file, when you merge it as program+game1+game2+game3+DSP1-firmware. I detect the games in icarus via SHA256 of the file. So, if you were to ROM hack them, this detection would break. You can get around that limitation with manifests, if you want.

Merging them won't do you any good as no other emulator supports CC'92 or PF'94 yet.
matalog
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 am

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

Thanks for the replies guys, and thanks byuu - do you already have CC'92 working in higan :shock: ? If you do, could you give an outline of how to get it running? I have been looking and haven't had any luck yet.



Matalog.
matalog
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Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

I'm getting on qute well in Powerfest '94 :-)

Image
Near
Founder of higan project
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Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by Near »

> Thanks for the replies guys, and thanks byuu - do you already have CC'92 working in higan :shock: ?

Yes. Rick sent me one version of Campus Challenge '92 (the black title screen one), and both versions of Powerfest '94. He never trusted me with the alternate CC'92 with the white title screen.

Unfortunately it was a hard requirement that I not share the ROMs.

I agreed so that I could emulate the hardware, and then JJ surprisingly released his own version of PF'94 publicly.

I'm really sorry I can't share them. I hate when people keep things like this from the public, but ... they spent like $20,000 getting the games, and don't want to give them out.

I believe d4s dumped the CC'92 reproduction cart from bunnyboy, but I have no idea if that will run in higan or not. I never tried it.

> I'm getting on qute well in Powerfest '94 :-)

The now-removed "server" tab in higan was actually used to submit your PF'94 high scores to a website to compare to others' scores. Unfortunately that idea never took off, heh.
matalog
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 am

Re: Nintendo Powerfest '94

Post by matalog »

Ah well. Hopefully some will appear sometime and we can all get a go :-).

I found some CC'92 ROMs but they didn't work, they could have been those that d4s dumped, not sure.

Kind regards,

Matalog.
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